In unit 2 of the PGCert I ended up creating a framework that was intended to boost student agency in the classroom but also serving as a reminder of everyone’s needs in the classroom. I had intended to create a manifesto with a tutor group that would be read out loud by me and my students at the start of every group meeting, workshop and talk.
You can read the full plan here: https://fanderssonpgcert.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2025/07/02/unit-2-final-report-changing-the-classroom-by-embodying-a-collective-manifesto/
Sadly, my role has changed, and I no longer have a tutor group that I get to follow through an academic year. So, my plans to put this into practice for the Action Research Project (ARP) had to change. Instead, my focus changed from students to staff.
I am asking the question: How am I supposed to be able to teach students to feel empowered when I do not feel empowered in the workplace?
This is a direct response to my frustrations around redundancy scares, lack of commitment to changing bad working conditions and outright ignoring pleas from staff at my current workplace within UAL.
I am interested in bringing a more energetic unionist language into this conversation, and to make use of my background as a comic artist to create visual material that illustrates the current issues in my workplace and provides a more inspired guidance to accountability and making and receiving complaints in the workplace.
Chosen research method:
In my other job at Queer Youth Art Collective I am very used to doing qualitative research based on talking to cohorts and reading transcripts over than statistics and numbers. So therefore I have chosen to conduct interviews and generate images as I believe i will be able to respond intuitively to this data.
In short, I intend to:
- Analyse UAL and Union policy documents around bullying and harassment to better understand the expectations to resolve issues in the workplace.
- I will meet and collaborate with an HR representative from UAL to generate visual representations of these policies.
- I will include the voices of my associate lecturer peers to further develop these ideas.
- Hopefully producing some form of sequential art resource.
Ethical Action plan:
Planned Reading list:
- UAL Bullying & Harassment policy
- UCU Bullying & Harassment policy
- Sara Ahmed – On Being Included
- Sara Ahmed – Complaint!
- Paulo Freire – Pedagogy of the Oppressed
- Sam Wallman – Our Numbers Be unlimited
- Sam Wallman & Jeff Sparrow – 12 Rules for Strife
- How to Set Up and Art School – The Other MA
Wish me good luck!
Fred